MIKRO-GEN have been around since the
earliest days and have produced a high volume of software among which Cosmic
Raiders and Mad Martha might be counted their only well known hits
until the emergence of the unlikely character WALLY WEEK. With Wally in
tow, Mikro-Gen’s dwindling fortunes took a dramatic upturn. MIKE MEEK
and PAUL DENIAL took a trip to Ludlow and talked to ROGER
KEAN.

A PROPER WALLY

You can’t help having a soft spot for certain people and
companies, sometimes because of circumstances, sometimes because they are
pleasant and sometimes both as is the case with Mikro-Gen. In August 1983 the
fledgling mail order company Crash Micro Games Action took its first ever
promotional step into the public eye and had a stand at that month’s ZX
Microfair in London’s Alexandra Palace. Arriving early on the Friday afternoon
the day before the show and staggering under the weight of our first ever mail
order catalogue (a massive 16 pages of black and white newsprint) to take
possession of our six foot by two foot table, we discovered that the whole end
of the square block we were on was empty of tables. The only other early
arrivals were busily filling it with their blue custom-built stand bearing the
words MIKRO-GEN. Naturally conversations were struck up and one of our
catalogues duly passed over. To their delight, Mad Martha received a good
mini-review in it. At the time, none of us present knew that the humble little
catalogue would turn into CRASH Magazine within another six months.

Little incidents like that meeting stick in the mind. In the intervening
year occasion to review much Mikro-Gen product, some of it interesting,
occasionally good, but never seemingly all that inspiring — until
Wally happened.

With Automania, Mikro-Gen developed a game to change their fortunes
with graphics and playability to match. But most importantly they developed a
real character in Wally Week on which to build. Pyjamarama confirmed
that success and went further, being a game which required thinking as well as
playing skills. The third in the series, Life of Wally, affectionately
referred to as Wally III, is nearly completed ready for release in February and
Mikro-Gen are happy that it will be as much of an advance on Pyjamarama
as that was on Automania.

I asked Paul and Mike who invented Wally and was firmly informed that they
work as a team. Paul, technically labelled Sales Manager, actually visualised
Wally, and to my surprise emerged as the man who actually draws the
striking adverts. But if proof were needed that Wally has become a very real
character, then it’s offered by the fact that good fictional characters start
writing themselves after a bit.

Paul said, ‘We are already having difficulties in discussion about Wally’s
character himself. There was something that came up in discussion last night
which I particularly didn’t like, something that was to go into this new game,
Life of Wally, because it seemed totally out of character. It’s not the
sort of thing that Wally would do, and I was dead set against it. It depends on
the interpretation — but it might suit one of the other characters in that
game. But then again, you’ve got to be careful not to fall into a trap, because
in a way you can do anything with Wally, which you can’t with, say, Jet Set
Willy. Willy was a nicely drawn character but not a social character, so
he’s more limited.

Mike added, ‘I believe Wally is one of the few humanised computer
characters out there.’

So if Wally is the result of a team effort, who actually does the
programming work? Mikro-Gen currently has five programmers on the team,
Chris Hinsley, Del McLoughlin, Andy Lawrie, David Parry and Nigel Brownjohn.
Who’s done the Wally programs? Paul frowned when I asked the question.

‘Eight or ten of us sit down and it’s an initial think tank. We don’t really
believe in making a star, it’s not the way a software house should work. We
cannot say that Chris Hinsley programmed Pyjamarama. Alright, David
Parry did the adaption for the Amstrad, as far as hitting the keys, but it
really is a team effort.’

So do they prefer to see a software house as more like a film unit than a
publisher with star authors?

‘Yes, we do look on it like being a film,’ said Paul. ‘You see the thing is
that certain routines or certain styles, Chris either didn’t know or was
having difficulty with, so Andy
Lawrie who is the technical director comes in. Andy oversees the whole
operation, what Andy doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing. So you can’t say that
Chris alone programmed it because there are things in there that wouldn’t have
been in it if Chris alone had done it. No it’s more the film unit thing.’

A team effort would hardly be worth anything if the members were widely
scattered, and in keeping with their think tank theories all the programmers
work in-house. Mikro-Gen operates from two sets of premises, there’s Bracknell
which houses the marketing, sales and despatch side, and then there’s Ashford
in Middlesex which, in the words of Mike, is the nice hushed offices with the
coolers for the computers going.

Discussion rapidly moved onto Wally III and the innovations they are
developing. As Mike pointed out, Life of Wally is being worked on by the
same programmers as did Pyjamarama, so the graphics will be of a similar
quality. The real advance is being made in the way the game will play.

‘What we are doing,’ said Paul, ‘is we’re having several characters on the
screen and they will be sabotaging Wally, or maybe helping him. On the whole
we’ve taken a very logical progression, whether you call them arcade games or
adventure games which have become tied together as arcade adventures, doesn’t
matter. Now, what has happened with adventure games is that instead of
controlling one central character, in things like Lords of Midnight
you’re controlling several characters, but in an adventure game. What we’re
doing with Life of Wally is we’re taking Pyjamarama one step
further into adventure whereby you’re controlling five central characters.
You’ve got Wally, his wife Wilma, Tom, Dick and Harry. All of whom are
different characters, and will operate different ways.’

‘Wilma is amazing,’ Mike interjected.

Paul laughs; ‘I have to tell you this — Wilma is amazing! I always had it in
my mind — and we had great fights about this — that Wilma would be the
archetypal dragon. She’s not, she’s gorgeous, she’s a real dolly.’

‘Dolliest woman you could wish to see on the computer screen,’ said Mike,
modestly adding, ‘within that size character.’

Paul: ‘And all these different people are going to have different tasks to
complete within the game. We’re not telling you what they are, but as you
progress through the game you are going to have to find out what those tasks
are.’

The outline for Life of Wally is that with in a town the five main
characters have to perform certain tasks to keep the town functioning.
Repairing the clocks, repairing the jail and so on. Mikro-Gen are not telling
people which of the five characters has to do what, and neither will they
tell people in what particular order things have to be done.

This increasing complexity in games is what helps keep everything alive,
and the interdependence of characters and objects and actions makes
for a more enjoyable game, but it also makes it harder for lots of players too,
and the proliferation of playing tips is an indication of how much effort
these games need. I asked whether magazines were spoiling the fun by printing
tips and maps too soon.

Paul: ‘To some degree, yes, if they are printed too early.’

Mike: ‘During the Pyjamarama launch in London in September, someone
from Computer & Video Games said to David Parry — he’s only a
teenager, handled himself incredibly well — have you got a map? He said yes, of
course we’ve got a map. They said, are you going to let us have it? He said No.
And they said, well you know we’ll only draw our own. He said Okay you can do
but it’ll be wrong, and just that one statement precluded them from printing a
map.’

‘Yours was the first to come out, but that was great timing, especially with
the tips that went with it, because you didn’t give the whole game away,’ said
Paul. Mike went on, ‘We are outlining roughly the main tasks but it’s up to
them to find out the rest of those tasks. If somebody wants to say, yes, for
those of you having difficulty Tom’s got to do that, then why not? Fine and
help them along. But the longer shelf life stems from the fact that nobody is
solving it. The difficulty is in making it simple enough for a seven year old
kid to play as well as keeping the interest of an eighteen year old brilliant
guy. You see, we had a problem in that Pyjamarama was good, but it would
have been better if we could have stopped people solving it quite so quickly.
It’s frightening how good they are — our programmers thought it would be a
considerable period of time, but there you go. So what we’re doing is splitting
it up so that Wally gets a morning tea break, then he gets his dinner, then his
afternoon tea break. You see there is a great conflict between making things
too difficult so that the players feel they have not accomplished anything that
day, and making people want to keep on and on and keeping a sort of mystique in
that area. And we feel we’ve got over it by introducing this tea break idea.
‘I’ve got to the morning tea break.’ ‘Have you? I’ve got up to dinner!’ This
keeps people talking about it all the time. We believe people will want to go
on wanting to play if they’ve reached a certain point. We’re open to
constructive criticism in this area, if that’s the way people don’t think the
game should go then we are quite willing to accept that. But certainly with
these breaks people will have a level of achievement that they didn’t
necessarily have before and it should make it last for a longer period of time
than Pyjamarama lasted for.’

Any sensible hero likes to see his line perpetuated and Wally is obviously
no exception, for Life Of Wally will see the introduction of his son and
heir — Herbert.

‘He’s the only character that can’t be controlled,’ said Mike. ‘Wally and
Wilma’s son — he’s crawling about, and keeps getting in everyone’s way. But
the interesting thing is that in our next piece of software which we are already
planning for after Wally III, Herbert has actually got to the stage of
walking.’

So the Week family is spreading out. I couldn’t resist asking whether
Herbert will have a flat cap like Wally.

Paul replied, ‘No, but he’s got a little curl of hair. And he’s going to
get lost in the apartment. You’ll see Wally and Wilma stuck just inside the
door. It’s going to generate another character.’

Wally has helped Mikro-Gen create more than just more characters. They
believe they are going against the current trend of adapting well known books,
TV series or films to computer games by crossing Wally over from computer games
to other media. As Mike explained; ‘We don’t know if we can pull it off, but
we’re going to have a damned good try — we’re going to try to promote Wally and
make him strong and go in from the computer side. It’s interesting to note that
everyone is trying to ‘cross over’ from films or TV to the computer, but not
the other way around.’

Paul added, ‘We’re working from a very successful computer game and then
taking it across via music, instead of doing it the other way round like
Ghostbusters. They’re playing on the hit film and pop single,
Tripods, they’re playing on the BBC thing, we’re doing it the other way
round.’

Music? I asked where music came into their plans.

‘What we are doing with Life of Wally,’ said Paul, ‘is that on the
reverse side of the cassette there will be a piece of music by a pop star,
can’t say who yet because the contracts haven’t been signed yet, and at the
moment someone is writing a piece of Wally music which, if it’s good enough
will be performed on the reverse side by this pop star and promoted in its own
right as a single. The other alternative is that we have a record which does
slot perfectly into the Life of Wally and neither is an adaption of the
other, which the same pop star will perform, depending on how the music turns
out.’

In addition to the pop single, Mike and Paul are discussing several other
ideas to extend the ‘crossing’ over effect of Wally. He naturally lends
himself to a cartoon strip both drawn and possibly even animated. and the
popularity of the character has already led to other demands on Mikro-Gen
from the general public. Mike — ‘As you probably realise we never hide from the
public every advert that we carry, every jacket, we put the phone number on, so
if there’s a problem we like to hear about it. We have a girl on the end
virtually non stop — and we’ve had some incredible responses — ’

Paul interrupted, laughing, ‘Yeah, you were rotten to that guy last
week! He rang up and said, ‘Hello, I’ve just solved Pyjamarama,’ ‘Yeah?’
‘Oh, am I the first?’ ‘No, not quite the first — we’ve had about 10,000 so
far!’

‘I wasn’t that bad! But we certainly have had thousands ringing up to say
they have completed it, and demands for a club too. I never realised that
people would want to join a Wally club, but we’ve had people wanting to know
if there is a Wally club. It doesn’t sound like a bad idea. What we will be
doing is some Wally badges.’

Has Wally eclipsed any other ideas, I wondered? But it seems not. With
their newly rediscovered confidence, Mikro-Gen’s team is trying out some
varied ideas, as Mike explained.

‘Well there’s Witches Cauldron which is a sort of very light hearted
super-graphics adventure. You’re a frog and you’ve got to turn back into a
human being. Then there’s ATC which is an incredibly technical program.
Then there’s Treasure Island — that’s only a convenient working title,
it won’t be called that of course. We’re trying different things in the market
place now. Witches Cauldron is a program that has reasonable graphics in
it, but if you put a lot of animation in then you sacrifice the actual
adventure. Because the memory that the animated graphics take up you prohibit
the writing of the actual adventure. What exactly does the general public
actually want? Do they want a complex text adventure with good graphics, or do
they want something like Pyjamarama that has no text in it but is a sort of
graphical adventure? And by marketing programs like Witches Cauldron
we’ve got to let the ball have a fair run in order to see how programs like
that actually sell. We’re happy with the quality of the program, but what I’m
scared of is people saying that it hasn’t got the animation we’re used to
seeing from Mikro-Gen. I think at some point a reviewer is going to say
that.’

It’s always a problem if you set a standard to stick to it, and sometimes the
standard isn’t suitable to the product. But I wondered whether they were
looking seriously at microdrives to increase available memory and thus
include Pyjamarama style graphics with text adventures.

‘We’re so unhappy with the microdrive in our software house,’ Mike replied.
‘The cartridges are so expensive. For several months now we have the Timex disk
drive and it’s gorgeous. You will be impressed with them believe me. The only
problem is that it’s the three inch drive and you can’t get them easily, but I
would see more chance in the long term of a company like Timex capturing that
market.’ At that point we had to conclude the chat because Ludlow is quite a
stretch from Bracknell, and the afternoon was wearing on rapidly. So Paul and
Mike headed south again, back to the think tank, badges, pop songs and Wally
character development. The results of their endeavours will soon be evident
when Life of Wally is released on February the 17th at the LET show.